During the BRIC summit, Africa has rejected the possible idea of inviting Morocco and Nigeria to the BRICS bloc on the grounds that its influence in Africa would be impacted. Pretoria feels threatened by this proposal from the United Arab Emirates.
Russia is hoting the new Summit of BRICS. This meeting is the first since BRICS agreed to extend membership to six additional nations at last year’s summit in South Africa. But Argentina pulled out under its new President Javier Milei and Saudi Arabia has remained non-committal.
According to Bloomberg, nations ranging from Malaysia and Thailand to Nicaragua and NATO-member Turkey are eager to join BRICS, though there’s unlikely to be an agreement on enlargement at the Russia summit.
India is against further expansion for now and supports a category of “BRICS partner countries” without voting rights because it wants to steer the group away from becoming an anti-US body dominated by China and Russia, Indian officials said on condition of anonymity because the issue is sensitive.
Brazil and South Africa support India’s view, said officials in the two countries. Any bid to dilute South Africa’s influence by inviting Nigeria or Morocco into BRICS will be resisted, said the South African officials.